


Slamming Doors

by Jadesfire2808 (Jadesfire)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire2808
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six interconnected drabbles from House and Stacy's relationship.  From a kickstarter at <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/housefic_pens/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/housefic_pens/"><b>housefic_pens</b></a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Slamming Doors

**The Cab**

The cab door shuts out the clamour of the bar, the street, the drunken revellers. Warm and tired from the cheap wine and the excitement of the evening, she glances at her hand, at the lines running in random directions. She'd tried to pull away, dragging the pen along her skin and he'd smiled, tightening his grip on her wrist and pulling her close. She can still smell his cologne, rising off her in the heat of the cab. The numbers are smudged with her sweat. By the time she gets home and washes them off, she has them memorised.

**The Apartment**

There is no hesitation in the first phone call, the first date, the first kiss, nor his hand as it moves now from her face down to her shoulder, her arm, her hip. They have managed to wait until there is no restaurant table between them, but now they are together, moving against each other, touching, exploring. His other hand twists in her hair and she smiles as her back hits the apartment door, pushing it closed with a noise that makes her jump. He takes one hand from her just long enough to turn the key in the lock.

**The Bedroom**

He has never learned to close doors gently and the sound of the bedroom door slamming wakes her. She understands his moods, knows from the tone of his silence that she cannot reach him when he is like this, that he draws her close only to push her away. So she drifts to the music of the piano, waiting for him to return, rolling into the warm hollow he has left behind. It is her only way of closing the distance between them. She wakes again to the slam of the apartment door and knows he will not return tonight.

**The Elevator**

She can feel his anger in the room long after he has gone. Her fingers, still smudged from the surgical marker, clench around the long-since cold coffee cup, the physical sensation tying her to the present. She shares his anger at the world in general and incompetent doctors in particular, but she wraps it up with her own anger at his stubbornness and at the gamble that may cost his life, forming them into a shield that she will need to survive. Because, as the elevator doors closed between them, she saw a cold fury that may consume them both.

**The Hospital Room**

She does not cry, but she is grateful to hear the slide-click of the room door, the swish of the blinds, giving her whatever privacy is possible. Determined to make no sound, she crushes her knuckles in her mouth, the pain distracting from the chaos in her mind. There should be no chaos, not when she has done the right thing, the hard thing that he could not do. She uses this certainty to pull her back, massaging the teeth marks from her hand and wiping the unshed tears from her eyes. She will not feel guilty, no matter what.

**The Apartment (Reprise)**

He blames her, she knows. Love and anger and passion and frustration and sorrow have become so confused that neither of them can tell the difference any more. She puts her key on the table, willing him to speak, hoping that he will not. The loss hangs between them, impenetrable and insurmountable. When he turns his back, she uses the anger that still simmers beneath the surface to stop her heart from breaking. She will feel no guilt, only the grief for the death of what they were. She picks up her bag and lets the door slam behind her.


End file.
